Insights on Volcanic Activity - Self-Potential and Gravity surveys of Masaya volcano

For more than ten years, the activity of Masaya volcano, Nicaragua, has been surveyed annually in order to characterize the long term mass/density variations within the shallow magma chamber. However, the injection of new magma is a rapid process, requiring only several hours or days. Other cyclical short period phenomena may be present (e.g., hydrothermal systems) and responsible for noise in the measured signal during a typical dynamic gravity survey. In order to determine the origin and importance of this noise and fully characterize any short period variations, a continuous gravity survey was made from February 16, 2006 to March 12, 2006 in the summit crater of Masaya. During this period, a short term of gravity variation of 60 μGal was measured with a wavelength of 20 hours. Hydrothermal systems, which may or may not be well developed, are directly related to heat, gas and fluids coming from the shallow magma chamber and plumbing system. Others sources of fluids are rainfall and the local aquifer, notably at the caldera lake, Laguna Masaya. Movement of hydrothermal fluids, which will generate self-potential (SP) signals, are directly influenced by superficial dyke injection and fluctuations of magma in the shallow plumbing system. The depth and movement of large fluid cells can be localized by self- potential data when processed by continuous wavelet transform. To characterize the shape and position of the hydrothermal system on the Masaya volcano, several SP profiles were made in conjunction with the continuous gravity survey. The SP data from around the summit pit craters were processed by continuous wavelet transform to localize the main large cell of hydrothermal fluid and determine the effects of the hydrothermal fluids on the continuous gravity measurements. The combination of SP and continuous gravity can give insight into short and medium term variations in magmatic activity.